


deliver me from temperance

by 28ghosts



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prohibition Era, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 11:58:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8623684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/28ghosts/pseuds/28ghosts
Summary: He’s not looking forward to the two-day drive to Chicago with just Goodnight and Billy and a trunkful of rotgut, but he is looking forward to being paid. And Lord knows nobody ‘round home’s really hiring a man with Faraday’s skillset, which is limited primarily to smoking, drinking and playing cards, and without money it’s real hard to fund any of those skills. So when the opportunity fell in his lap to pocket some cash driving around the Midwest’s most secretive pair of bootleggers, well, he’d have been a fool to pass that up.
-
Or: Wherein Goodnight and Billy are bootleggers, and Faraday happens to drive them.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this comment](http://poemsingreenink.tumblr.com/post/153461651014/eliacheung-sorry-but-i-just-cant-control) by [poemsingreenink](http://poemsingreenink.tumblr.com) on [this post](http://eliacheung.tumblr.com/post/153223277261/sorry-but-i-just-cant-control-myself-they-are) by [eliacheung](http://eliacheung.tumblr.com/). Thanks to [foralllove](http://archiveofourown.org/users/foralllove) for the glancin' this over; absolutely all mistakes are mine!

Faraday is leaning against the hood of Goodnight Robicheaux’s Reinastella with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth when he sees Billy Rocks leave the house first. They’re in Kentucky, and Kentucky in November is colder than Faraday remembered, so he’s glad they’ll maybe get the fuck moving soon.

He’s not looking forward to the two-day drive to Chicago with just Goodnight and Billy and a trunkful of rotgut, but he is looking forward to being paid. And Lord knows nobody ‘round home’s really hiring a man with Faraday’s skillset, which is limited primarily to smoking, drinking and playing cards, and without money it’s real hard to fund any of those skills. So when the opportunity fell in his lap to pocket some cash driving around the Midwest’s most secretive pair of bootleggers, well, he’d have been a fool to pass that up.

Billy stands on the steps for a long moment. Man cuts an imposing figure: striped black suit cut a little thinner than everybody else wears ‘em now, two shoulder holsters holding Colt 1903s, and, hand to god, black leather gloves he never takes off. Intimidating son of a gun. Goodnight had said the man was Korean, but Billy’s English is good enough that Faraday hardly cares what type of anything he is.

After a moment, Billy turns and gestures inside, and he ambles over to the car where Faraday’s waiting with his arms crossed. “Open the trunk,” he says.

“Alright, alright,” Faraday drawls back. He pushes off the grille of the car and is turning to open up the trunk when he sees Goodnight and a tall black man he doesn’t recognize carrying a crate between them. “That the stuff?”

Billy rolls his eyes. “Of course,” he says, voice clipped.

Faraday waggles his eyebrows and goes to pop the trunk. Goodnight and the stranger settle the crate in gently, but the glass bottles inside still clink against each other.

“Joshua Faraday, this is Sam Chisolm,” Goodnight says grandly, gesturing.

Sam reaches his hand out, so Faraday shakes it; Sam’s grip is steelier than he’d anticipated.

Goodnight claps them both by the shoulders and steers them both by the shoulders back towards the house. “He and Jack Horne’re the best moonshiners in the country, mark my words. And Sam, this is Joshua Faraday, who takes a curve like you would not believe.” He sounds eerily cheerful. “This man is a miracle behind the wheel. Let me tell you, it makes me unafraid of a car chase, this young man.”

Sam kind of snorts at that. Faraday likes him already.

Goodnight pushes them inside before himself. “Joshua, why don’t you and Billy help us haul these crates? Feels like a sin to tear Horne away from his stills, if you ask me,” Goodnight says.

Billy trails them inside after Goodnight and, when Faraday looks back at him, glares.

“Uh,” Faraday says.

“Great,” Goodnight says, clapping his hands together and rubbing them in satisfaction. “Just four or five more. Then we’re Chicago-bound, and Lord am I excited to see Mrs. Cullen again. Sam, I ever tell you how I met Emma Cullen?”

At least Billy doesn’t talk so much.

Goodnight likes driving during the day. Less suspicious, he claims, though Faraday privately reckons that there’s maybe some sort of bribery-based justification for Goodnight acting like the police ignoring them is a given.

Goodnight makes Faraday check in at their Indianapolis motel and bring the three keys back to the car. Goodnight takes all three and squints at the stamped room numbers, then hands Faraday back one of them. “Everythin’ go alright, the check-in?”

“Everythin’ seems jake far as I know,” Faraday says. “You need any help unloadin’ or anythin’?”

Goodnight shakes his head and adjusts his hat. “Naw, son, thank you though. You go get some rest. Billy’ll help me out.”

Faraday doesn’t have much with him: a small suitcase in the passenger seat, since Goodnight insists on riding in the back with Billy. Nevermind it’d make more sense to have Billy ride shotgun with his Browning in his lap rather than in the back. Faraday takes his suitcase and retires to his room, ignoring Billy and Goodnight sitting outside, smoking cigarettes.

* * *

The minute Faraday leaves, Billy starts relaxing. Goody huffs a laugh, both of them leaned against Goody’s fancy car, and, the pair of them alone in the motel parking lot, gazes at Billy with the same unabashed fondness he always does when they’re alone together. “Boy’s a piece of work,” Goody says, like a confession.

“He is...a good driver, I suppose,” Billy admits.

Goody laughs at that so hard his head tips back and his shoulders shake. “I’m sorry to subject you to him, _cher_ ,” Goody says, after he wipes tears from his eyes. “Lord knows I’d rather your company alone.”

Billy lets himself smile around his cigarette. “I’m sure you’ll make it up to me,” he says.

“Well,” Goody drawls, going to the trunk to grab their bags, resting on top of their hidden cargo, “I’ll certainly try to.”

Goody’s rented three rooms this time, though they both know damn well one room’s not being used. Keeping up appearances, though -- a necessary evil. They both go to the room furthest from Faraday’s. The minute the door’s closed behind them, Billy drops his bag and turns to pin Goody against the wall, kissing him hard. Goody gives back as good as he gets, as always, deft fingers at the buttons of Billy’s vest.

Billy only tears himself away when he remembers his guns are still holstered. He unbelts the strap over his left shoulder first, still staring at Goody all collapsed against the wall, flushed and slack-mouthed like it’s the first time Billy’s kissed him.

“I thought it was gonna be me makin’ somethin’ up to you, not the other way around,” Goody manages.

It takes Billy longer to disarm himself than he wants: two 1903s, his 1908 tucked inside his vest with his wedding ring, the knives in his boots, the knives in his waistband. But he takes his time because he knows Goody likes watching him -- knows Goody likes watching him do anything, but especially watching him undress, and for Billy, well, stripping his weapons is the biggest part of undressing.

His guns and knives set on the room’s one rickety table, Billy shucks his jacket and vest before stalking back to Goody, who’s looking coy with his head tipped back. He braces his hands against the wall, leans in to whisper into Goody’s ear. “Oh, you’ll make it up to me,” he says. “I know that.”

“Oh, yeah? How d’you know that?” Goody asks, too breathless to be convincing.

Billy drags one hand down Goody’s chest, lets his fingertips hover over Goody’s belt buckle. “Oh, I know,” Billy whispers, and Goody whimpers right in his ear.

There was a time when Billy thought it would never get old, having the most powerful bootlegger in the Midwest writhing underneath him, gasping for his touch, ready to suck his cock at the drop of a coin. And it wasn’t that Billy was wrong -- it was just that it didn’t take long for Goody to become more than just a powerful business partner who Billy sometimes fucked. It didn’t take long at all. And sometimes, buried all the way inside Goody, Billy could blush remembering those days: the days before he particularly cared whether Goody felt good or bad, whether Goody lived or died.

But Goody knows about that, and Goody doesn’t care. Understands. So, curled up against each other in an Indianapolis motel, Billy tries to fuck Goody good enough he forgets his own name.

* * *

Chicago is even colder than Kentucky. Faraday gets ushered into some dark and smoky speakeasy where the owner is a woman who stares at him real unimpressed when he gawks at her.

Eventually the four of them end up shoehorned in a booth in the back. Smoke is thick in the air, and there’s some jazz group playing too loud from a low stage in the center of the establishment. Nobody else is complaining, though, so Faraday just keeps drinking and pretends he doesn’t feel transparently out of place.

He knew he could get out of Arkansas if he tried. He didn’t know this is where he’d end up: an illegal Chicago jazz bar with two very scary, rich as hell bootleggers and a woman who didn’t like him.

Goodnight and Mrs. Cullen banter away unconcernedly for a long time -- maybe twenty minutes. Faraday’s sitting beside Billy, who stays silent, while Goodnight and Cullen sit next to each other, studiously not touching. It confuses Faraday for a moment until he remembers the gold ring Goodnight wears. Not that Goodnight would be the first man to cheat on his wife, Faraday thinks, but he probably wouldn’t do it so openly. If he’s angling to spend the night with Cullen, he’d make his move in private. Surely this is just business talk.

Still kind of rubs him the wrong way. He hopes that’s not what’s going on, some sort of infidelity. Even if Goodnight’s a chatterbox who flinches too easy, well, three days is about the longest Faraday’s ever held a job that pays particularly well, and he’s even getting used to Billy.

Kind of.

Cullen excuses herself to find someone she says works with her managing Rose Creek, gets up and promises to return.

Goodnight rolls his eyes fondly as she leaves, takes a long drink. “So, Joshua, what do you think of Chicago’s finest speakeasy proprietor?” he asks, voice easy.

“Why do you got a wedding ring?” Faraday blurts out.

Both of Goodnight’s eyebrows shoot up, and Faraday doesn’t have to look over to Billy to know the other man is rolling his eyes. Faraday takes another moment to wonder what the hell Billy’s deal is. Goodnight insists that Billy is his _associate_ , whatever that means -- not his bodyguard, which had been Faraday’s first guess.

“Well, because I’m married,” Goodnight says evenly.

Faraday feels his expression screw up into confusion and skepticism. “You’re married,” he says.

“Yessir,” Goodnight says.

Faraday thinks about it. It kind of makes sense that Goodnight’s all private about it: the man’s worth more money than Faraday’s ever seen in his life. Maybe he’s got a young, pretty wife he keeps secreted away in a mountaintop cabin so no one tries to hold her ransom. Or maybe the weird skittishness that Goodnight gets sometimes is because he’s a widower too fragile to acknowledge his wife is already dead -- stolen away from him early, maybe. That’d be romantic. Or, shit, maybe he’s married to someone who works with him, some sharp-witted lady who coordinates who they haul booze to next.

Maybe he’s secretly married to Emma goddamn Cullen, and that was why she doesn’t like Faraday. Because she’s married. Or something.

“Okay,” Faraday says back. “Well, then, if you don’t wanna share, that’s just fine I suppose.”

Goodnight laughs at that, but it seems good-natured.

Cullen comes back with a man in her wake. He’s tall, that’s the first thing Faraday notices, and lanky, walks like he’s looking to start a fight. “This is Eduardo Vasquez,” she says. “He...helps me enforce, as it were.”

Goodnight nods wisely despite the fact Faraday has no idea on earth what that means.

“Now,” Cullen says, as Vasquez draws up a chair, “let’s talk business.”

“Well, I think you can agree the samples we brought you this evening are a fair bit more quality than the swill you serve here at this present moment, no offense,” Goodnight starts. Faraday looks up to the ceiling in despair. This is going to take forever, he thinks. But he knows better than to look at Billy for sympathy, and Cullen has her negotiating face on. Desperate, he glances over to Vasquez, sitting at the end of the booth.

But Vasquez looks wildly unimpressed by the proceedings. When Faraday catches his eye, Vasquez grins back, all teeth and boredom. Something in Faraday’s stomach flips. Must be the moonshine.

Couldn’t be anything else.

* * *

Faraday spends a few days in Chicago mostly on his lonesome. Things only go to hell when he’s wandering back to the speakeasy to meet up with Goodnight and Billy for the last round of negotiations with Mrs. Cullen and he turns a corner and there’s a black bag over his head and a hard impact against the back of his head and then darkness.

He wakes while someone is tying him to a chair. He sees someone dragging Goodnight’s body town the hall to the left and urges himself to remember that. The fact they’re alive means this is a ransom attempt. The fact they took Goodnight instead of Billy means the kidnappers are all probably dead before the day is done. Faraday doesn’t know Goodnight that well, doesn’t know Billy at all. But that much he knows. He lets his eyes drift closed so the kidnappers think he’s still unconscious, and he waits. 

* * *

A few hours later, there’s a crack like thunder, then another: the door bursting open, then a shot being fired. Faraday opens up his eyes to see one of the kidnappers dead on the floor, a bullet through his left eye and blood spotting his lips. Faraday’s never been so glad to see Billy Rocks in his life. The man has one of his 1903s in his right hand, arm stiff in front of him like he’s some police officer, and it’s all Faraday can to do jerk his head leftwards, down the hall, and Billy nods at him, all business.

More gunfire. Someone screaming, then cut silent. Faraday glares at the dead man sprawled out on the floor in front of him. “This is your fault,” he says uselessly, tugging at the cuffs binding his wrists. He knows damn well the only thing he can do is wait, so wait he does. 

Another person screaming, then quiet. A pair of footsteps. The door swings open again, and there’s Goodnight looking dazed with one arm over Billy’s shoulders. Billy looks around, wide-eyed and frantic, and settles Goodnight against the far wall, braced against the midpoint between two windows.

Billy rifles quick through the dead man’s pockets to find his key ring and undoes Faraday’s handcuffs, then, terrifyingly, draws a knife out of one of his boots and slashes through the ropes around his ankles. “Take care of Goody,” he says gruffly, drawing his second 1903 out of its holster. “Six shots. Don’t fuck up.”

“Uh,” Faraday says, “when you come back you better yell in Korean in advance or somethin’, else I’m gonna be ready to shoot you.”

Billy flashes him something nearly a smile, though closer to a grimace. “I will be back soon,” he says.

Faraday squints at the gun after Billy’s left, mimes shooting it towards the doorway, still sitting in the chair he’d been tied to all morning. It’s not a quarter hour before there’s a handful more gunshots and then Billy back in the doorway, rattling off something in Korean to make sure Faraday doesn’t shoot him.

The man’s covered in blood, though Faraday has the feeling it’s probably other people’s blood.

“Time to go,” Billy says.

* * *

They regroup at the Rose Creek speakeasy, Goodnight pale-faced and distant, Billy with strangers’ blood in his hair. Faraday drinks everything he’s offered and thinks about how the annoying thing is exactly that he isn’t annoyed. This is precisely what he expected, working for moonshine runners, and exactly what he wanted, and he’s not scared, not shaken. 

Cullen pours them glasses of their own liquor. “A fair bit better than what we were serving before,” she admits to the three of them, sitting at the long empty bar. “Hardly be hospitable to offer you somethin’ else.”

“You’ve got someone on the inside,” Billy says, twirling his glass, “who sold us out. Would have come for you next.”

“Mr. Vasquez is taking care of that as we speak,” Cullen says primly.

Billy makes some satisfied noise. “Goodnight should be outside of Chicago for a few days,” he says. It feels strange to hear him say ‘Goodnight’ instead of ‘Goody.’ Feels strange to hear Billy talking instead of Goodnight. “Can you find a place for Joshua Faraday to stay? We’ll come back in a week, make sure everything’s taken care of, finalize things.”

“Of course,” Cullen says, pouring them another round. “Of course. Mr. Faraday, what would you think of staying with my friend Mr. Vasquez?”

* * *

Vasquez has an apartment just above the speakeasy. It’s small, one bedroom, but there’s a sofa in the den area that Faraday reckons he’d be able to fit on. All the windows are covered in red fabric that makes the late-afternoon sunlight feel ominous. In the kitchen, before pouring two glasses of whiskey, Vasquez tells him the long and colorful story of tracking down the informer in Cullen’s circle: a man who used to work for a former moonshine supplier, a man now decidedly dead by Vasquez’s hand. It had been a pleasure, Vasquez says. Knows lots of men who work for Goodnight Robicheaux. He’s a good man to work for, he hears.

Faraday tells Vasquez everything. It’s only been, what, four days since Goodnight hired him? It’s not hard.

“There ain't no wife, is there?” Faraday asks. 

Vasquez’s jaw sets as he pushes Faraday’s glass towards him. “You ask dangerous questions,” he says, not meeting Faraday’s eyes. “Do not repeat that or you are a dead man.”

Faraday feels his face flush as he fingers the rim of his glass. “It ain't that,” he protests, not really knowing what he means. “I mean, uh, I was wondering how that, you know...works.”

That makes Vasquez finally look at him, though. Faraday tosses back his drink without breaking eye contact, riding out the full-body shudder he always gets with his first swallow of strong drink. “Well, guero,” Vasquez says, eyes dark and voice rich with suggestion, “would you like me to show you?”

* * *

Goody drives them into the mountains despite Billy’s protests. “I’m jus’ fine, dear,” he’d said as they left Chicago, only the two of them in the car, reserve jar of moonshine meant for Goody’s nerves hidden underneath the back seats. “Drivin’ steadies me. And I promise I drive more cautious than Joshua; you know that.”

It took them a day and a half to cross the Tennessee border, but the minute they hit the mountains, well, even Billy started to relax.

It takes two hours after that to get to Goody’s cabin, but it’s still light when they arrive. They get out of the car wordlessly, Goody hauling their bags, Billy hauling the liquor. “Go lie down, darlin’,” Goody says, unlocking the front door. “I’ll come get you in just a few, huh?”

Billy should protest. It’s been Goody doing all the driving, him sulking in the passenger seat, wound up too tight to even make conversation. But Goody’s already dropping their bags in the den, checking on the kitchen, and the prospect of lying down makes Billy concede.

He flops down on his back in the bedroom and falls asleep before he even realizes that he’s tired.

He only wakes when he hears Goody cursing.

It’s darker than it was earlier. He isn’t wearing his holsters and knives, but he’s still wearing his gloves. He pushes himself up on his elbows, scoots down to sit on the edge of the bed to see Goody trying to draw up the fire. It’s warmer in the cabin than it was when he fell asleep, too. It’s not long before Goody’s got the fire dancing, and Goody makes a pleased noise, stands and glances over his shoulder, grins when he sees Billy sitting up.

'We got plenty of firewood from last time,” Goody says. “Food we brought along should last us most the week at the very least.”

Billy doesn’t say anything, just tries to blink the sleep out of his eyes. Goody stands and wanders over, something hesitant to the set of his shoulders, and Billy stares at him the whole time, waking up a little more every moment.

Relaxed on the edge of the bed, Billy widens his thighs and beckons. Goody drops to kneel between Billy’s legs, head bowed a little. It hides the aged bruise on his temple, the bruise that still makes Billy’s stomach drop every time he catches a glimpse of it. Billy cups one hand against Goody’s skull and sighs. Words aren’t enough. Every time he remembers just how close of a call Chicago was, twin measures of terror and relief surge through him. But Goody’s still here, they’re still together, they’re safe and finally, finally alone.

Goody lolls his head into Billy’s touch until he bumps into Billy’s knee. He nudges Billy’s hand out of the way and leans forward to nose at the inseam of Billy’s trousers, just above the knee. His eyes are closed, shoulders relaxed, lines of his face lessened by firelight and calm. Billy strokes the side of Goody’s face gently as he can, and Goody shivers a little from the touch of leather, just like Billy knew he would. His lashes flutter as Billy traces down to his bottom lip.

It’s unfair, Billy thinks, that he won’t be able to remember this moment forever as richly as it feels right then: Goody gently nipping at the fingertip of Billy’s glove, Billy slowly sliding his hand back, Goody holding Billy’s glove in his teeth and only letting it fall to the floor when Billy reaches out to touch him bare skin to bare skin. “Darling,” Goody whispers, voice ragged; how does Goody always manage to make normal words sound like _prayer_?

Billy pulls his other glove off with his teeth and tosses it aside. His breath feels like it’s catching in his chest, and the only thing he wants is Goody underneath him, close to him, against him, just wants _Goody_. It’s like Goody can tell because he braces himself on Billy’s knees and pulls himself up, wincing at some pain, and together they sprawl backwards onto the bed, Goody straddling Billy’s hips and kissing him urgently, Billy digging his fingers into Goody’s hips and pulling him closer, closer. Billy keeps having to pull away to catch his breath, and Goody trails kisses down his jawbone and throat, only returning to kiss his mouth when Billy whines.

“It’s okay, darling,” Goody says into his mouth. “It’s okay.”

It’s only then that Billy realizes he’s shaking, that he’s breathing hard because he’s panicked. Goody grabs him and rolls them so he’s on his back, Billy half-collapsed on top of him, and Billy buries his face into the side of Goody’s neck to hide the hotness in his eyes. Goody strokes his hands down Billy’s sides and back up again.

“Goody,” he says, hearing his voice shake.

“I’m right here, Bill,” Goody says. “I got you, sugar.”

Billy clenches his jaw and tries to focus on Goody’s warmth, the familiar smell of his skin. Goody’s tugging at Billy’s jacket, and Billy reluctantly sits up to shuck it off. Goody is fumbling with the buttons of his vest when something occurs to Billy, and he reaches inside his vest to the small pocket above his heart and pulls out his ring. He holds between two fingers, staring at the way the polished gold catches the firelight, and notices how badly his hands are shaking.

Goody takes the ring from him and slides it onto his ring finger, then strokes it with his thumb. “There we go,” Goody says. “Ain’t that gorgeous.”

Billy rests his hands on Goody’s chest to feel his ribs move as he breathes and closes his eyes. They’re safe, alone, secluded enough to be unbothered for an entire week. They’ll sleep tangled up in each other and sleep in and fuck after waking up without having to worry that someone’s in earshot. “Yes,” Billy says as Goody pulls him down for a kiss. “It is.”


End file.
